By Stewart McConnell

Copyright dailyrecord

A huge homecoming for former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon saw her take centre stage in front of a full house in Fullarton Connexions as the headliner for the Tidelines Book Festival on Saturday night. The Dreghorn-born politician, who spent nine years in the top job at the Scottish Government, returned to her roots talking about her upbringing to promote her new memoir, Frankly in an interview with Sean McDonald from the Blethered Podcast. A range of subjects were covered, including multiple visits to Frosties Ice Disco in Irvine, a bizarre chat with former Prime Minister, Liz Truss, being driven around by the late Queen around the Balmoral Estate, a challenging relationship with her late predecessor as First Minister, Alex Salmond and correspondence with an iconic lead singer. She said she had an amazing and “really ordinary” childhood and brilliant parents and a close-knit family. Visits to her grandparents’ house in Dunure are especially memorable. “I remember going to Frosties, which was the disco in the Magnum on a Saturday night and me and my pals used to go and we just skated round and round to the likes of Wham and Duran Duran. It was great fun,” she said. When she became First Minister she was invited to star in Desert Island Discs with Kirsty Young on BBC Radio 4. “One of the songs I selected was Ordinary World by Duran Duran and Simon Le Bon sent me a DM [direct message] on Twitter to thank me for choosing their song. If my 14-year-old self had thought that would happen I would not have believed it,” Nicola recalled. She also remembers how her mum Joan, later to be North Ayrshire Provost, arranged a fifth birthday party for her at the house and invited friends but she hid under the table and refused to come out.” She then overcame her shyness to enjoy what she dubbed a “sliding doors moment”. “I had a burning sense of teenage rage about what Margaret Thatcher was doing to my community. I had become increasingly interested in politics and my English teacher at Greenwood Academy, John Donn, who was a Labour councillor and and knew was interested in politics and he assumed I was Labour and brought me in a form asking me to join the party which to be fair was not a mad assumption at that given the political nature of things in my community at the time.” Then when the 1987 General Election campaign began she decided to get involved. “Kay Ullrich was the SNP candidate in the 1987 General Election and I walked from my house to Kay’s door because I was interested in campaigning for her. It was one of those sliding doors moments, I was about to ring the bell and felt terrified. “If I had turned the other way my life could have gone in a different direction but I rang the bell. “Kay had a kind of Joan Collins glamour with a fag in her hand and next thing I remember was being in the passenger seat of a car and Kay had a loudspeaker in one hand and a fag in the other. It was old-fashioned campaigning when we got in people’s faces!” She admitted she dreamt about talking to late former First Minister Salmond, imagining things were normal again but that was not the case. Latterly she did not want him in her life. But memories of their previous good relationship came back when he passed away. A visit to a COP 26 Conference reception at Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Museum in 2001 brought back a bizarre political memory. “There was a reception for the conference and I had to stand and talk for 45 minutes but it felt like three weeks to Liz Truss when she was Foreign Secretary. It was a major summit and the only thing she wanted to ask me was how I managed to get an interview in Vogue and I took great pleasure in saying it was in fact my second interview!” Ms Sturgeon also recalled how she had enjoyed a wholly Scottish cultural experience by watching a screening of Trainspotting with later former Lib Dems MP Charles Kennedy while in Australia for a conference. Becoming First Minister was hugely difficult, she revealed. She said: “I served an apprenticeship as Deputy First Minister for seven years so I was as prepared as I could be but you realise quickly nothing prepares you for that. There was never a single moment of every day when you expected the phone to ring.” Nicola also has a memory of a visit to the late Queen at her Balmoral Estate which brought back a childhood memory. “I remember as a kid being taken to the opening of the Magnum in the 70s and we saw the Queen passing by in her car. Little did I think years later she would have been driving me round Balmoral!” She saw the book as an “exclamation point” on her life but she would still speak out on issues she felt strongly about. Pictures By Tracy Ross, Irvine Camera Club.